Opinions: Restricting Files?

just a small discussion topic

[cookiemonster]

Hi everybody,
It's been a while since I posted here, so I thought I'd kick things off with a little discussion.

I am making a flash gaming site, where there will obviously be tons of .swf game files freely available to the public.
The question is, should I use Apache to keep people from downloading these .swf files?

My view is:
If I prevent .swf downloads, I prevent certain tech-savvy users from downloading my files to their computers and playing them locally, thus increasing traffic to my site. Also I keep the game developers happy by not allowing people to simply copy their games.
However:
Those certain tech-savvy users will probably just get their files from another site, and get frustrated with my system, driving hits away from my site. Plus I feel like I should keep things nice and open for people to explore and learn, and develop if they want to.

I have always been a fan of the whole "open-source" thing.

So, what do you think about all of this?

[tangor]

I think that human nature being what it is...

Check your valuables at the door, and hire a bully boy to guard them because the current crop of humans are "gimmie" types who don't care whether it is closed or open, they just want it and don't want to pay (whatever payment from loyalty to money) to get what they want.

Lock it down. Those that complain aren't the folks you want, those who comply are your future customers/visitors.

[jdMorgan]

You will likely need *more* than just native Apache directives to "stop downloading" because without checking things like timers and cookies, there is no difference in a browser loading that .swf to "play" it, and that same browser downloading it to "save" it...

You're basically going to have to provide a "one-use-only" cookie to allow the .swf to be downloaded for the purpose of playing it, mark that .swf file as un-cacheable, and force the reload of a new copy of the HTML page (along with a new cookie) if the player wants to play again... Also, the .swf file will need to be written such that it cannot run locally without fetching *something* from the server -- something that you can withold if not requested with the correct/new cookie.

I haven't actually worked through this .swf-specific problem myself, but it points out the underlying problem: In order for a browser to "show" your content to a user, it must have already downloaded it... Trying to overcome that basic fact leads to a lot of complication.

Jim